Lakehouse with the Lawsons

We took some vacation time last week and spent a few days at Sheila and Neal's lakehouse with the Lawson side of the family. It was a lot of fun! Thanks Sheila and Neal for letting us use your house! The first day we were there we spent some time at the pool. Since I'm preggo and can't do any lake sports, this is where I spent a lot of my time. If you'll notice I'm not in any of these pictures, but I promise I was there. I'm just always the picture taker.

The first night Chad grilled steak and shrimp and we ate out on the back porch.

I love this picture of Cohen and Jake. This picture might be too small to tell, but it shows off both of their big blue eyes!

Cohen had his first tubing experience on this trip. It was funny because he talked about it all day and then when we finally got him out there he was a little nervous and didn't quite know what to think of it. Good thing daddy rode with him and kept him safe!

We also celebrated Kellie's 30th birthday while we were there. Ignore the fact that her name is smudged... Cohen dropped his sippy cup on the cake!

What a fun getaway!

4th of July!

We decided to stay in town and hang out at home with just the 3 1/2 of us. We started out the weekend by going to the outlet mall on Friday morning and doing some shopping. On Saturday we went to the pool and then had a lunch picnic. After naptime I let Cohen help me make a 4th of July pie. It's a great recipe to make with kids because it's really simple and anyone can do it. It's basically a key lime pie recipe, but if you don't have key lime juice around you can use lemonade concentrate. The filling is lemonade concentrate, eagle brand, and cool whip. Just buy a store bought graham cracker crust and pour in the filling. Then, let it chill for a couple of hours and add sliced strawberries and blueberries to the top.

Here is Cohen helping to decorate the top. More blueberries (or blue strawberries as he calls them) made it into his mouth than onto the pie.
Finished product... he is being very stubborn lately and has decided not to look at the camera when he knows you're taking his picture. Grrr!

That night we grilled out and then headed to the firework show right down the road from our house. They had a lot of blow ups and games for kiddos. Cohen tried out any game that involved a ball.

Then Cohen and I went on a quick train ride.

Here's an update on our other child... she's growing like a weed as you can see. This picture is at 18 weeks.

Potty Power!

I want everyone to know how proud I am of our little boy! We started potty training this morning. It went fairly well for Day #1, but when we started the day I had no expectations of him actually pooping in the potty, but he sure did! I know that we're still a long way from being completely potty trained, but this was such a proud moment for me!

Here he is inspecting the damage!

Pouring it into the potty. This picture cracks me up (no pun intended) because if you look closely you can see the ring on his butt from sitting on the potty.

Here he is enjoying the sweet victory with a sucker!

Day at the Aquarium

After a week of basketball camp, Chad had his first day of summer vacation on Monday. So I took a vacation day and we headed down to the Dallas World Aquarium.

We tried to get a good family picture but Cohen wasn't cooperating. Don't ask me what face he is making in this picture.
He was intrigued by the stingrays...

His favorite movie right now is "Happy Feet" so, of course, his favorite exhibit was the penguins! Chad bought Cohen a penguin at the gift shop. Here he is giving it a kiss!

Helping Daddy Around the House

Cohen has been helping out more and more around the house lately... in his own way, of course!

He's been raking the sidewalk...

And sweeping the grass...

And putting new knobs on all the doors in the house.

I promise my child wears pants, but if you can't tell, it's a little difficult to get the hat off of him.

Here are a few pictures from some more Rangers games we've been to this summer....

Lori and Micah invited us to their suite a couple of weeks ago. We had a lot of fun!

If you can't tell, Cohen loves going to Rangers games!

Wearing Daddy's hat...

An anniversary and an announcement!

First, I will start with the announcement... we are expecting baby #2!! I am almost 13 weeks. A lot of you probably have already figured it out if you've read my facebook profile. Anyway, all is good and we're very excited. So, this brings me to our anniversary....

Yesterday Chad and I celebrated our 5th anniversary. It was such a special day! Each year we take turns planning our anniversary day and this year it was my turn. So Chad took off work and we started the day by going to our first trimester ultrascreen in hopes that we could find out the sex of the baby, and we did! Yes, that's right we're having a baby girl! And more importantly, we found out that she is developing perfectly! Next we went to lunch at Mi Cocina, ate our favorite nachos, and talked about how our lives are going to change with a baby girl in our lives. After that we headed off to an afternoon at the spa. It was so relaxing. We got a couple's massage and pedicures. I didn't want it to end. After we were completely relaxed we headed next door to our favorite kids shop and bought our first girly-girl outfit! I've already decided (even before I knew I was having a girl) that shopping for girls is WAY more fun! Ok, so where was I... oh yeah, then we headed home and got ready for the evening. After getting freshened up we went to Rick's Chophouse in Downtown McKinney. Wow, if you haven't ever been there, the food is EXCELLENT. I was extremely impressed. We will definitely be going back. Afterward we topped it off with some Paciugo, my favorite! What a day! It was so great to spend an entire day, just the two of us, with no distractions.

I love you Chad. Can't wait to see what the next 5 years bring!


Here are the flowers he brought home to me. They were so pretty that I thought they were fake at first!

Our dinner on the patio at Rick's Chophouse.

1st place, baby!!

Yesterday we made our way out to Arlington for the Rangers game. For those of you who don't know, Chad and I are big Rangers fans. Out of the 162 games of the season, we watch at least 100 of them. We started doing this the summer of 2004 after we got married and moved to Plano. We had no money so we would watch the Rangers (or the "strangers" as we call them) almost every night from the couch. If we really wanted to splurge we would drive out to Arlington and buy the $5 tickets then move down to the lower deck around the 3rd or 4th inning. It's a lot more difficult to make it out to the ballpark these days with a one year old who has an 8:00 bedtime so we watch almost all our 100 games from the couch, but yesterday was the perfect day. With the rain delay it was a 4:00 start time. Perfect to be able to get a full nap in and still get home for bedtime.

We're pretty excited about this season. I want everyone to know that I predicted 90 wins this season.... our "Strangers" are well on their way (we're in 1st place for those of you who don't follow baseball)!

Cohen spent more time turned around talking to mommy then he did watching the game! Please ignore his hair. We're growing it out. I have this dream of him having long wavy blond hair this summer.... so far it's just a stringy mess!

If you'll notice, he's wearing his Mavs hat. He insisted on wearing this one instead of his Rangers hat. I decided not to fight that battle.

My Boys!!